Our Birth Story

I had my scheduled NST (non-stress test) on Friday the 22nd at 10am. I told my work that I wasn’t going to come in until after the appointment because we always had trouble with earlier appointments, because baby doesn’t like to move in the morning. I was going to have a relaxing morning and eat a big breakfast to avoid him not moving. Well, that was not the case. I woke up with about 10 minutes to spare to throw on clothes and head out the door to make it to the appointment on time. Once I got there they took my blood pressure which of course was elevated but not too high (I have been bordering the line of having gestational hypertension). They then hooked me up and got to monitoring baby. I already could feel this was not going to go well. He wasn’t moving even after all the tricks: eating crackers, drinking cold caffeine, and buzzing. The nurse went to get my doctor, Dr. Goedtel, she pretty much knew we would be sent to triage to get monitored more. 

Dr. Goedtel came in and had this look on her face, like this seems to happen a lot. She said, well your blood pressure is high but not in the alarming range, but with the lack of movement I want to send you to the hospital. She then stated, I know you don’t want to be induced, but with your blood pressure and all that, induction would be in a best interest. I told her about my sugars (I had gestational diabetes, again borderline) becoming more normal and she told me that could be a sign that my placenta was no longer working correctly. Which scared me and realized ok, maybe I need to consider this induction thing. She told me to take my time, no hurry, eat lunch and then head over to triage. That she was on call that night and Monday so if my blood work came back preeclamptic she could induce tonight. If I wanted to wait until I was closer to 39 weeks she was on call on Monday. She thought the environment on the outside was better for baby than the environment on the inside. I didn't like that but I only wanted best for my baby and it looked like I would be allowing induction. But first I asked her if she would check me and strip my membranes before I left to possibly jump start labor “naturally” before possibly being induced. This was at about 11:20am, she checked me and I was at 1.5cm and she was able to stretch me to 2cm. Then she stepped my membranes (not the most pleasant thing). She asked if I felt any cramping, I said no, she made a face like-hmm you should if it worked. Then she said well maybe I will see you tonight. I firmly believed I wouldn’t see her. I thought I had one more weekend baby free.

I left the doctors and told Bill (my husband) what was going on. We decided to have him stay at work because this had happened before and there was no reason to miss work, because I was probably just going to be sent home. I called work told them what was going on, and I guess to start my maternity leave now. Then I called my mom, she did not want me going alone, so she said she would come home and then take me. I went home and hopped in the shower (shaved my legs) and packed up my last minute hospital items in our bags. My mom got there about a half hour later and we took our good ol' time getting out of the house. We left the house probably about 1:45 and made our way to the hospital. We stopped at Wendy’s, I got a burger and fries. After sitting down to eat I started to get what I thought was a nervous stomach ache. Which I chalked up to be nervous about going to the hospital to be induced. Again, I firmly believed that was not happening tonight. I was sure I was going to have one more weekend at home. I told my mom that I felt weird and wanted to get going, so we hopped back in the car and headed to the hospital.

About 2-2:215 in the car I started getting bad back pain and cramps. I thought it was due to the stripping of the membranes, which my doctor said may happen. They were really uncomfortable but I could talk through them so I didn’t think they were contractions as much as I thought it was just a little cramping from what was done earlier. Then they started happening every like 5 minutes. My mom said that sounds like you’re having contractions. At this point I still didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. We got to the hospital around 2:40 and I filled out my triage card which has the question Why are you here?, so I write “failed NST and blood work” I am taken back there pretty quickly by Lisa the nurse who recognizes me, she had me last time I was in triage. Before I got to the room I had to give a urine sample, for the life of me I could not pee enough in this cup! The whole time I’m squatting over it I am having these pretty painful cramps (contractions). I get back in the room and she says well we can wait a bit for the urine and we get me hooked up to the monitors. My first blood pressure was 140/70 so it was high but still on the border. A tech comes in to take my blood and Lisa asks if I want an IV in case I need to stay. I say NO, in my head I am thinking "I am going home after this blood work" and I don’t want to be induced today. So she takes my blood (I am a very hard stick) she only sticks me once. My blood pressure throughout the stay in triage were 136/66, 150/87, 145/86, 149/94, 159/93 and then around 4:15 I got a 156/88 reading. Usually I am able to calm down and get the blood pressure under control, but I realized this was not happening this time. In the midst of being monitored my mom was like you need to tell them your pain and you’re having contractions. I finally told the nurse and she was like "oh yeah sounds like you’re having back labor", and all I could think about was NO, I’m just here to get monitored. No one seemed concerned, including myself, that I was in actual labor! I still hadn’t gotten checked, which they said they would send a midwife in to do so. Around 4:40 they said my blood work was normal but the fact that I still had higher BPs and I was indeed having contractions, they were going to keep me. At this point still no one had checked me to see how far dilated I was, they kept saying the midwife was going to come in and do so but after they decided to admit me they said, they would do it when I got to my room. My mom asked if I was ok with staying and getting admitted and I said "There is no way I am going home in this much pain." We told Bill who was now out of work to get the car and head on up. I asked my mom to go see if there was a room with a tub because there is only two rooms at my hospital that had tubs. The nurse said yes, but it was being cleaned if we could wait about 20 mins (uhm yes!). So I labored in triage for about a half hour, feeling like I was having actual contractions, now that I could actually admit it to myself. I got in a gown and the tech came back and “tried” to hook up an IV. I asked for only a hep lock, I did not want to be confined to anything. The tech couldn’t find any vein so she left and had my nurse do it. Lisa was able to find a vein in my right hand which sucked, but at least it got done.

We walked over to room 11 where I would deliver this baby!. I texted Bill and he said he would be there in like 20 mins. He got there around 5:45. And I decided to get in the tub, they said they would have the midwife come in and check me, she never did. Bill hooked up the bluetooth speaker and got some calming music on and my lavender essential oil and I turned on the jets. The contractions were pretty intense and I dealt with them by swaying my leg back and forth and “whooshing” my hand downward with low moans and long breaths. At one point I opened my eyes to see my mom kinda doing the motion with me in a joking manor. I shook my finger at her, apparently only I was allowed to do these motions. I asked about nitrous and the nurse brought in the machine pretty quickly but it was apparently empty and made a high pitched sound and needed to be replaced. Which it only took a few minutes, thank goodness. I was so concerned that this was early labor and I was not coping well with the pain. I wanted to do this without pain medication, so my mom, husband, and I had a code word, that I had to say three times at separate occasions to get an epidural. I used our code word “cacao” once in the tub. It was very discouraging not knowing if I was making progress with all these intense contractions or if I was just a big baby and not coping well. I continued in the tub until my doctor got on shift. She came to my room around 7:15pm, she didn’t seem too happy that no one had checked me, my mother wasn’t very happy either. I got out of the tub, which probably was the most painful thing, standing upright sucked, I made it over to the bed where finally I was checked. My doctor said I was at  6cm!!! I started to cry, all that hard work and pain was actually doing something. 

I no longer felt weak, I felt empowered!

I could do this! My doctor was a little surprised, she said it looked like the stripping of the membranes worked and as long as I kept progressing I didn’t need induction medication. Thank God! She left to let me progress. At this point the nurses had switched shifts as well and Alyssa came on. First and foremost she was an amazing nurse, by far the best ever, I loved her and was thankful this amazing nurse was going to be the one to help me through this. She asked if I wanted to get back in the tub, and the thought of having to walk back there and get in turned me off to it. I just wanted to stay in the bed. Which is funny, because in my birth plan I wanted to be able to walk around and not be monitored so I could be out of bed. When it came to it all I wanted to do was be in that bed. My contractions were so close together though, I didn’t really have time to move around. Alyssa, the nurse, asked if I had a birth plan, to which I replied "Yes, I have ten copies, but throw them out." Clearly I had just gone through a rough contraction. Alyssa was like-no, no. no if you have ten copies clearly you want to try and follow it. My mom grabbed the plan out of my bag and much to my surprise they followed it very well. In the plan I noted I did not want to be constantly monitored, for the reason of wanting to be mobile. Also, I hate the bands that go around your abdomen, they are so uncomfortable. They agreed to not constantly monitor and just used the doppler on me every so often. I was so grateful for that. Since we were not constantly monitoring baby we weren’t sure the position of him, he had been head down I think since conception, but for sure since our 20 week ultrasound. A few weeks prior though he was sunny side up. Alyssa suggested I labor for a while on my left side and then my right to get him in the proper position as he worked his way down. At some point I used the code word again. That was number two. Somewhere after this I had my mom and best friend showing me all these wonderful birth affirmations that I had printed out, and planned on hanging up in the room. Clearly did not happen, but they held them up in front of me and made me read every single one of them. It helped. I was using low moans through the nitrous tube, which I later found out sounded like a whale sounds, ha. It was working though. Brandi, my best friend, got there around 8:15pm. I was going to have her take the photos with my camera, but everything happened so fast I didn’t bring it. So she captured images on her phone, so grateful for that.

Around this time I was having pretty intense contractions and I got a little weepy during one and I used my code word a third time and asked for an epidural. It was a lot to take in. Alyssa asked me "Are you sure?" I said "Yeah". She said "Ok, we have to put the monitors on you for about 20 mins before we call the anesthesiologist."  I said, "Never mind." The thought of having those bands on me during a contraction outweighed the pain of the actual contraction. Shortly after that my doctor came in to check me and I was at 9cm, and my bag of waters was bulging. I hear her say "I know she didn’t want us to break it but it may move things along", to which I responded by taking out the nitrous tube in the deepest voice possible. "Break it!" She didn’t hesitate one bit, and it was the most satisfying feeling I have ever felt. It did put me back to 8cm which she warned about. At around 9:19pm I felt the urge to push. As much as I read and listened to birth stories on podcasts, I heard about the urge to push, but the feeling is so surreal. My body absolutely took over at during a contraction and started to bear down. I told the nurse that I had the urge, she had Bill hold my leg while I did some "practice pushes" and she saw his head was there so she called the doctor. My doctor came in and she said I was at 9cm, to hold off on pushing or I would rip my cervix. Pretty quickly after that I was at 10cm, because his head was there and ready to go. Alyssa brought out the squat bar and had me do some more “practice pushes” and called back my doc who I believe came in around 9:48, but had an emergency in another room. Alyssa had tied a know in a sheet and played "tug of war" with me as I pushed. My doctor made it back in the room and suited up around 10:11pm. I pushed a few more times until he was born at 10:15pm! I had severe chills after he was born, it was the craziest feeling ever.

We welcomed Henrik earth side on June 22, 2018 at 10:15pm. Weighing in at 6lbs 12oz and 19.25 long. Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes. Seriously the most wonderful thing that has ever happened.

I did it! No pain meds, 6 hour labor, 45 minutes of pushing, I did have a second degree tear that I did not feel (thankful for).

My experience with St. Joe's Mercy Hospital, the staff, and facility was awesome. Thank you to my amazing husband, wonderful mother, and best friend for guiding me through the best experience of my life. I could not have had this experience without the help and knowledge from listening to the 100's of podcasts by The Birth Hour (https://thebirthhour.com/) and Elise Bowerman my prenatal yoga instructor (http://www.sweetmommayoga.com/).